Posted
by
kdawsonon Tuesday January 20, 2009 @07:36PM
from the racing-windows-7-out-the-door dept.

crazyeyes writes "It looks like Microsoft is facing problems with Windows Vista SP2. The final Service Pack for Vista and Server 2008 (before Windows 7 comes out) has been delayed. The folks who broke the launch details and dates of previous Service Packs for XP and Vista have Microsoft's latest internal schedule. Can Microsoft get it out before Windows 7? According to the new schedule, just barely."

No, service packs are a free download. Windows 7 is Vista SE. Remember Win98SE? It was a service pack but they needed some cash and made people buy it as a version upgrade. Looks like history is about to repeat with Vista except this time they also have to change the name because Vista has gained such a horrible brand identity. It's now the Edsel of Operating Systems. Like the Edsel, Vista probably doesn't deserve all of the rap it has got but reality and PR aren't on the same planet with each other.

The big takeaway from all of the Windows 7 reviews though is that if you hate Vista you will probably hate Windows 7.

They are saying you can run Windows 7 on a netbook. Ya, like you could run Vista on one. Yes it installs and sorta runs but XP runs better.

Windows 7 toned down the security nags a bit and added some nice chrome to the taskbar. Haven't even heard Microsoft itself claim any other major differences with Vista other than yet another IE rev that is currently so broke it might not make the cut. Bugfixes and a couple of minor UI tweaks do not a major version make. We are firmly in point release territory at best, service pack sounds closer to what they are going to ship. They are going to call it a new version because they need a fresh hit of revenue.

* New Interface: A greatly simplified toolbar, but only at first glance. The quick launch and taskbar now intermingles and can be greatly customized by the user.
* New Taskbar: The taskbar now automatically hides icons as theyâ(TM)re added, into what I call an icon corral which can be selected to show the icons.
* UAC simplification slider: You can define how and when you are prompted by the UAC, even shutting it off.
* UAC definition by program: You can also exempt specific programs from UAC prompts.
* Device Stage: A number of rumors have been circulating about this one. First and foremost, device manufactures DO NOT have to program this in order for it to work it is just an option for direct interaction. Access all the functions of your devices from one screen.
* Homegroups: Its a situation that many of us face. We have a domain controlled work laptop. We come home and want to access our personal media (now managed by libraries) and printers. This solves those problems, while keeping company data safe. Default printers change automatically, depenting on what network you connect to.
* Libraries in Explorer: expanded support for Libraries across networks and a changed browsing interface within explorer.
* Math Input panel: It seems quite advanced, including input of hand/mouse written algebra and calculus.
* Calculator: Adding separate programmer and statistics modes to the previous standard and scientific calculator options.
* MS Paint: Welcome the ribbon.
* Magnifier: built in application to magnify a specific area of the screen and zoom in. This is similar to the capability enabled in XP or Vista in with Microsoft Mouse software.
* Gadgets across the desktop: Gadgets are no longer limited to the gadget toolbar.
* Simplified network connection stack: Ability to peek into the network stack and select an available network without opening any windows.
* Sticky windows (my definition): You can now drag windows to the top of the screen, which will automatically maximize the window. Also by dragging the window to the side of the screen, it will size the window to take the half of that side of the screen
* Preview Desktop: To the right of the taskbar, there is now a preview desktop button.
* Media Player Codec Expansion: Native support for AAC, H264, divx, xvid, AVCHD, flip video to the list of supported codecs.
* StreamOn: Ability to push audio and video output to networked A/V devices (think radios, receivers, and TVs).
* Display Color Calibration Wizard: A step-by-step interface to more closely calibrate proper gamma, brightness/contrast, and to eyeball proper color.
* Simplified Sideshow support: I previously installed sideshow on my windows mobile phone, when I created a Bluetooth relationship with the phone (for PAN support), it automatically discovered its capabilities and shows this in the sideshow area and device stage. Remote bluetooth control of media player, via a win mobile phone.
* New Backgrounds: Sure, absolutely not important, but an interesting re-take on the current Vista background theme.
* Faster Boots: Parallel device initialization during boot â" faster boot times. Demo showed a 5-10 second faster cold boot over Vista.
* Simple Shutdown: In later builds theyâ(TM)ve removed the confusing red, round button and replaced it with a simple, named â(TM)shut downâ(TM) button on the start menu, with the optional OS stops on a pull down menu on the right.

For IT

* Action Center: Thereâ(TM)s a good deal built into this function, but one of the most interesting features is a built in application that allows users record a walk thr

They are saying you can run Windows 7 on a netbook. Ya, like you could run Vista on one. Yes it installs and sorta runs but XP runs better.

My stock Eee 904 would like to disagree with you and your definition of "sorta runs." Is Seven numerically and meaningfully faster than XP? I don't know. I don't do benchmarks. What I do is use Seven in what could be considered real world testing, and I do know this: From where I type this, the experience of using Seven beats the experience of using XP. In fact, I

In the surrounding support camps to the Mount Everest expeditions, they actually use fuel made of... flaming shit! Problem is, from a low potential stored energy compounded by the thin air, it burns terribly messily, and basically trades warmth for respiratory damage into disease susceptibility for the climbers, who then have real trouble completing the climb.

So, does 7 Flame? Or does it sizzle messily and leave half chewed partially upgraded versions of everything all o

I think you've missed the meaning of the word "evolutionary". It *is* a set of incremental improvements from some baseline.

I would consider XP similar to a "service pack" to 2000. They're almost the same OS, in much the same way that Vista and 7 are almost the same. If 2 operating systems are designed to use the exact same drivers, they may as well be the same OS.

By that definition, Mac OS X v10.5 and Mac OS X Public Beta are the same OS (printer drivers notwithstanding). You remember Public Beta---the version that didn't even have an Apple menu....

A well written OS should generally work with the same drivers as previous versions with few exceptions. Every now and then it isn't possible, but for the most part, it is not only possible, but also desirable.... Using driver compatibility as a metric is a really bad way to judge whether something is the same OS or not....

OS X 10.5 is derived from the Public Beta in a series of incremental releases that were, with one exception, overpriced. None of the updates to OS X has come with new features that are worth the $130 that Apple charges, though at least Apple hasn't billed any of them as an all-new rewrite of the previous version. On the other hand, many users (particularly converts from Windows) may feel that the performance increases found in new releases of OS X are worth paying significant money for. (I personally feel t

When you think about it, that 2000->XP logic works. By the same logic, Windows 7 is a service pack, and direct descendant, of the original Windows NT.

If you were to look at the codebase, I would wager that Vista and Win7 are incredibly close. The majority of the overhaul is a) interface (to add a nice KDE-esque taskbar) and b) usability (How about an obvious add/remove programs panel?).

In the same vein, there have only been two or three real Microsoft operating systems: MS-DOS, the Win1-3/9x codebas

XP *is* a service pack of 2000. Kind of a service pack of service packs, compiling all the fixes to date and adding a few new features. There's not a lot different. Windows 7 is an SP of Vista even moreso.

If you want to argue that SPs don't introduce major changes, then XP SP2 was a different OS. That sucker brought more changes, both visible and behind the scenes, than 2000->XP did.

I disagree. Windows 2000 was good in some ways, but it was not a consumer OS. XP brought all the needed functionality and compatability that was needed to make it a consumer OS. Windows 2000's video drivers ran slower than XP's, so it was not as gamer friendly. Lots of older apps would not run in Win2K, but they will in XP because of the extra compatability layers.

No, XP was a fairly major merge of the NT and 9X product lines. It had some pretty major teething problems because of it. Later service packs have corrected most of the problems, which is the big problem facing Microsoft. XP is finally a fairly stable operating system. If they could have fixed the 'everyone runs as root' problem inherited when they had to have backwards compatibility with Windows 9X it would have been really good.

Incremental improvements from a (questionable) proven base are better than making too different and new.

Which is why the anthems of people are saying "Break backwards compatibility and make something that works." Essentially breaking backwards compatibility happens anyway, you might as well do it on purpose and with reason. Look at what Apple did from OS 9 until now. They have a somewhat structured, and semantic OS with stable and structured foundations...but they had to draw the line and axe compatibili

The person who puts these articles up can often be found posting this type of piece to incite furor. If you've ever wondered why an article was posted, chances are, you're wondering about a kdawson post.

I had 4 problems with Vista.1. Aero is pretty, but not useful2. The performance sucks; it uses clock cycles and memory to automate things I don't care about3. Massive intrusive support for DRM and content protection (HDCP, etc)4. Windows Genuine Advantage is mandatory.

They cleaned up the UI. It's sleeker, while maintaining some of Aero's glitz. The performance has improved, although not as much as I'd like. The DRM and WGA are still there. Half of the things I disliked about Vista were improved.

1. you can disable it. There are other things that are nice, the menu imho is much better. And the restructuring of the profiles/home folder is much closer to how *nix is. I would say it's actually a little better, now that the subdirectory structures are all under the home folder in windows.
2. You can disable them (search, defender etc. I do).
3. Honestly most of this isn't active unless trying to play content that you can't play on Linux as it stands, so the point is kind of moot.
4. This part sucks.

Huh? Why do you have such an issue with Aero? If it bugs you so much, turn it off...Its mainly just bling. Unless you have crappy onboard graphics the performance cost of aero is negligible. I like the bling, and the preview on alt-tab or mouse hover on the taskbar is useful.

2. The performance sucks; it uses clock cycles and memory to automate things I don't care about

IMHO Vista doesn't have a performance problem. I've got an XP desktop at home that is loaded up with plenty of stuff like file indexing and other things that come out of the box with vista. Its performance is slightly better than vista when lightly loaded, and _heaps_ worse when heavily loaded (couple of users logged on, lots of memory-hungry apps open)In situations where XP would have problems even responding well enough to even shut down Vista just keeps on chugging along. Performance degradation under load in vista is mugh more graceful than XP, no question.

Pop quiz. Can you point to just one thing that you can do with XP, but the DRM in vista blocks you? Things like HDCP suck a bit, but they weren't invented by microsoft, but they were required by the MPAA in order for vista to support high def output of "protected" content - something XP can't do at all. Vista will not stop you ripping a DVD or CD, playing a dodgy Xvid download or anything else you can do on XP.Please don't use any references or quotes from Peter whatsisname from Auckland University or you'll just look as uninformed as him.

4. Windows Genuine Advantage is mandatory.

Yeah, kinda a pain, but only if you have pirated windows. If you have an OEM install then its "preactivated" via a key in the bios, but having to activate retail copies is a hassle, particuarly if you change hardware or rebuild. I'm not happy about this one either, but its hardly a dealbreaker.

* Trying out Win7 and raving about how good it is* Finding out that Win7 is just Windows Vista with some UI and performance enhancements

Um, that's why Windows Vista sucked. The performance was poor and the UI changes were... questionable (overly excited UAC, anyone?). I've tried Vista since installing 7, and while yes, a lot of what people like was there, it wasn't as well done. Now it's finally usable - it's just a shame that 7 wasn't released as Vista SP2...

I have no significant experience with either Vista or Windows 7, but in the last 12 months I bought two computers with adapted and language-localized versions linux preinstalled by default and supported by online repositories at the manufacturers. I didn't have to go to some obscure store either, I got them at main outlets, an asus eee at a big german electronics store, a dell mini at dell.com. I could have bought similar linux-based systems at about 4 other sources/manufacturers (acer, lenovo, etc.).

They weren't lied to. When Vista came out, it was a compatibility disaster. The rest of the computing world simply wasn't ready for it when it was released, so drivers weren't ready, apps didn't work, etc. The rest of the computing world kept right on improving, though, and users kept on upgrading their software, drivers, etc. Thus, at this point, most people have versions of apps and drivers that are compatible with Vista, most hardware manufacturers have working Vista drivers, etc. As a result, Vista isn't as much of a train wreck as it was a few years ago, nor is Windows 7 for the same reason.

Of course, if someone upgraded to Vista today, he/she would find that Vista still uses way more RAM than it should (and way more than XP uses), but that's one of the things Windows 7 is supposed to be addressing. Don't underestimate how important that is when it comes to overall usability, performance, etc. Those "minor" improvements to Vista are not really minor. They just aren't feature changes. There's a difference.

Yeah, Microsoft really shot themselves in the foot with that one. Memory used for cache should have been made perfectly clear to avoid (or rather, mitigate) this kind of FUD.

Now if you go look at the processes that Windows spawns by default, you'll still see that Vista uses more memory, but it's not by much. Certainly nowhere near what the FUD spouters would like you to believe.

Except it doesn't really, just like every MS VM it often decides that keeping system cache is more important than keeping applications in memory and so it decides to swap out "infrequently" used code and data. The problem is when you go to switch from your photo app to your browser after not having used the browser for 30 minutes Windows has to swap it back in, in the meantime it might have just been using that ram to hold autosave files that were never re-read. This leads to your browser taking up to a min

That's utter bollocks. I have a workstation with 8GB of RAM running Vista64. No such thing happens. All open apps spring back to life pretty much instantly no matter how long they have been dormant.There's something fucked up in your setup, or you're trolling.

Except that Vista does graceful caching and cedes RAM when an application wants it. Forgot that part, hm?

So does XP, Linux, and most Unix variants. That has nothing to do with the central complaint. Vista uses far more memory than it should to achieve a unit of work. Much of which is held by the OS and/or the GUI.

Specifically, this is one of the items Windows 7 should address. So your casual effort to make Windows look good completely ignores the fact your comment is not topical in the least and altogether

Except it obviously doesn't fucking work because a fresh install of vista still took on average three times as long to do everything as a machine with the same specs, XP SP2, and which had never been defragmented. With high-end specs at the time. I started with an optimistic view of vista, but it's a complete and utter pile of smoking crap that I'm happy to purge from every machine I can. What good features it has are carried on to windows 7, which I rather like.

Windows Vista doesn't just cache more aggressively, though that's certainly one valid complaint. An OS generally should never page live VM pages out to disk except when there is memory contention. That means that prefetched data in the disk cache should drop to darn near zero before you start seeing paging traffic. If it doesn't, something is badly wrong. That said, this is just one of many significant memory problems with Vista.

The display subsystem is designed in such a way that any apps that use GDI for drawing get all their windows double buffered, resulting in memory bloat and poor performance (source: Guardian.co.uk [guardian.co.uk]). Indeed, changes in the window management system result in a huge reduction [istartedsomething.com] in memory footprint in Windows 7. A fifty percent reduction in backing store size is not a small improvement by any stretch of the imagination, particularly when you consider that most of that bloat represented a Vista regression relative to XP....

The OS growing to consume all available memory is a virtue is only valid if the OS uses it sensibly. If it squanders it and then ends up ejecting useful pages as a result, that is not a good thing no matter how you look at it....

Because it doesn't give it up when I want to use it for something else? I'd rather that the operating system be leaner, so I can run my heavy duty stuff on top of it. A game can't use the resources that the OS has allowed itself to expand into.

Yeh, mark me as a troll but think about it... Anyone who just wants to read their email, browse the web and sync their iTunes with their iPod will choose a Mac.

Yes, if they specifically want to sync their iTunes, their choices are pretty much just Mac or Windows.

But I would guess the main reason Linux struggles on the desktop (besides not being given much of a chance) is that you're talking about a mythical class of user. Users who really do only want to read email, browse the web, and play music on an iPod would be fine with Linux, and would probably be very interested to find that they can buy a laptop for less than a thousand dollars that will do all of that --

About 10 years ago I installed linux for the first time. The internet was there, and every time Internet Explorer crashed in windows 95 on my pentium 100, it took the network interface with it, and I had to reboot. At one point I had enough, and because some friends were sgi or linux users, they got me convinced to try it, and I went to a store and bought a box-set of linux install cds and manuals by SuSE. After loads and loads of puzzling I got everything working.
I redid this several times, with several

Microsoft doesn't want to release it soon, even if they could. The reason: less stable vista = more reason to upgrade to windows 7 (read: more money for Microsoft). That may not be the actuality, but I bet a handful of people think that way there.
On a side note, Ive been running Windows 7 beta for a week now (I decided to be ahead of the curve for all future OS releases due to the nature of my job) and am overall very impressed (I know, shoot me and throw overboard into/. shark waters)
Its faster (especially restart times!) and overall more polished. Now, it should of been windows vista in the first place, but its too late to go back in time with my machine (lost a watchyamacallit and a thingymajiger) I really suggest if you havent to at least throw up a VM of it sometime.

I'm not sure whether you're just paranoid, or actually stupid. Vista is perfectly stable. Microsoft gets the same amount of money whether people buy Vista now, or Windows 7 in a few months. Do you have any kind of citation, or even an argument based in reality, to say this is a conspiracy?

Most end-users running Vista are doing so because they aren't comfortable changing their OS, those who absolutely must have DirectX 10 and don't realize you can get it on XP with some hackery, or Microsoft fans who insist on running Microsoft's latest release.

I'm not sure any of those three groups will care that much about Vista SP2. The first is largely uneducated on technical matters. The second is only fixated on gaming, and the third will be Windows 7 early adopters.

Vista SP2 however is aimed largely at the first group, who bought their computer with Vista preinstalled, and likely won't jump to 7. Microsoft has to support those users for years to come.

Most end-users running Vista are doing so because they aren't comfortable changing their OS, those who absolutely must have DirectX 10 and don't realize you can get it on XP with some hackery, or Microsoft fans who insist on running Microsoft's latest release.

Where do you get your data from? Evreyone I know that runs Vista runs it because they like it. The only people I know that bitch about Vista are Linux fanboys.

I know people running it because it came on their new computer, because they wanted to try it out (like me), or because it was better than XP at some of the functions they wanted (encryption & overcoming user stupidity ie administrator access).

No one I know that uses Vista actually complains that much because, in the end, it's just an operating system. Far more user-friendly than anything but maybe MacOS, more versatile in terms of driver support and applications, and as stable these days as anything o

You can run as a non-administrator in XP, and use "Run As" to elevate privileges. It isn't as much of a pain as UAC in Vista.

Vista isn't better in that regard.

Vista isn't faster than XP, because in real world performance, you need almost twice the system to get the same performance.

Lastly, and this really annoys me, the UI is far less efficient. I need to jump through extra steps to perform the same tasks. Even if Vista was quick and responsive on a low-end machine (which isn't the case), the UI design h

How about XP fanboys? Or OSX fanboys? Or Windows Server 2008 fanboys? Or Windows for Workgroups fanboys? Or even, dare I say it, Windows ME fanboys?!

Honestly, I am most upset that I was forced to get Vista "for free" on my newest laptop and now I am stuck with it unless I want to pay even more M$ tax. Microsoft should do the world a favor and offer free upgrades to 7. Now *that* would shut a lot of people up.

"I don't automatically hate Microsoft or Microsoft products. I'm not a fanboy. I keep a Windows partition, and I work primarily as a SysAdmin on Windows boxes."
Vista has:
Much improved ability to run as non-admin. (life saver!)
IE in a sandbox (again, life saver)
Compositing in the video drivers instead of cpu
A much better start menu
The ability to recover from crashed video drivers
Legally supports Blu-Ray / other media.
Vista's Media Center abilities are far better than Windows MCE.

I'm heading out the door, and I will respond with regressions, however for your supposed improvements:

XP allows you to run as a non-admin, and it is easier in XP. You can still elevate permissions, in a far less annoying fashion. Vista's UAC is a failure, and that is why it is greatly improved in Windows 7.

If you are surfing the web in IE, you fail. If you insist on running IE, you can run IE without permissions with IE7 in XP.

Yes, it matters. It matters a lot. People who bought Vista and installed it because they liked it are the sorts of people who might upgrade to Windows 7. People who run Vista because it came preinstalled and they couldn't be bothered to request a downgrade to XP are similarly unlikely to spend the money, time, or effort to upgrade to Windows 7.

I got vista on a new laptop when it first came out, and yes pre-SP1 it was pretty dire. I nearly downgraded to XP, but held out for SP1. As soon as the final bits were released I formatted and re-installed with SP1 and there was a _world_ of difference. Now I'm perfectly happy with Vista, and I'm planning on upgrading my XP desktop at home to the 7 beta this weekend.I don't try and ram vista down everyone's throat, but it does annoy me when I hear such uninformed vista bashing.Vista isn't perfect (a

You can get DX10 effects on a DX10 video card in XP by running DX10 libraries, and games in DX10 mode. That sure seems like DX10 to me.

How is Vista an improvement over XP?

Vista is slower, has a broken driver model, UAC is broken, configuration dialogs have been relocated for no apparent reason, the start menu is a disaster in usability, and simple tasks have now been changed to multi-step processes that take more time.

Computers are supposed to enable us. GUIs are supposed to make life simpler and more eff

I am a software engineer; I find inefficiency annoying. Vista does all sorts of anonymous crap in the background. I don't know what it's doing, and there's no easy way to find out. I don't see any concrete benefit to whatever it's doing, and it seems to do it all the time. I'm accustomed to a little more transparency in the operation of my computer. I guess that's part of the reason that Vista seems like nothing more than a big ball of annoyance to me. It's unnecessary; I can't seem to figure out what it does so much better than XP, except get money for Microsoft.

TFA doesn't actually mention any problems, and most people on the non-public SP2 Beta news groups (disclaimer: I'm an SP2 technical tester) are reporting this beta is very stable. I haven't had any serious issues with it, and I've yet to see any proof of a 'show-stopper' that would cause such a delay.

Now give me a minute to get my flame-resistant suit on so I can safely watch my karma burn.

because many users are asking for that Windows XP downgrade and willing to pay more money to get it.

Plus more and more file sharing networks are downloading Windows XP ISO images at new records for downloads to get rid of Vista and replace it with a pirated version of XP because they cannot buy a copy of XP except from certain vendors.

Not only that but a lot of people are waiting for ReactOS [reactos.org] to enter Beta testing and get closer to a 1.0 release version. So they can have a free and open source Windows alternative that runs native Windows XP drivers and software.

Heck some people even want to use AROS, HaikuOS, or some other FOSS alternative to Windows just to get away from Vista. Even, gasp, Linux! Plus more and more Macs are being sold and converted from PC users.

It's pretty much a proven fact (a) Windows sucks, (b) people will continue using it

It's called "industry momentum", and Microsoft has a lot of it. You know how it goes. Jackie uses MS Word because her co-worker Jill uses it. Jill uses it because one of her clients uses it. So on and so forth. Windows and Office will never be killed off with a silver bullet. When going against the establishment, change can only happen slowly and study steadily. So far, only Apple seems to be remotely close.

Actually, people are considering stepping over to other platforms (finally) because

a) Apple has very much improved their interoperability and price points since the last major computer buying cycle (3-5 years ago, the Internet age with the G5 (greatest desktop ever but expensive) and P3-P4 (P3 was good but P4 was a disaster)). Now all those P4's are coming of age and a Mac will run your olden programs as well as new ones for both platforms.

b) Linux and even OpenOffice 3 has reached feature parity with what most Windows users are currently running (XP and Office 2000-2003) and has some of the nice things of Vista as well if you have the hardware (accelerated desktop and effects)

c) Vista is a disaster (whether it's PR or not we leave in the middle) and requires an overly expensive computer to run all it's features on. In the mean time, the economy is making people look for lower-end which has Ubuntu on netbooks, gOS on Wal-Mart's stuff or allows Apple to beat Dell in mid and high-end (good looking too) computers (especially business)

d) The geeks that most people ask about computer related stuff have some experience with either Mac/Linux and will likely recommend that as well. A few years ago, most geeks I know were still in Windows 2000-XP land whereas most (the same people) now run Linux.

e) 80% of all incoming students in the University I work at has an Apple machine and I've heard that other Universities are experiencing the same (one executive said in a meeting that within a few years we might all have to switch since all our students will want us to accept non-Microsoft digital formats too). Since students are considered the most tech-savvy in most households (where non-geeks live), most likely the parents are following their lead even if it's just to get iChat to work.

f) Whereas businesses used to be able to spend a lot in IT, now most businesses have tightened their belt, if not only in free-budget IT. CIO's and CFO's are actively looking for cheaper alternatives where before you could spend multiple thousands in server licensing without anybody asking. Also the current and incoming geek-class server admins have knowledge and experience with alternatives where before server admins were sometimes nothing but glorified accountants that worked on a really good spreadsheet in Excel once.

.....Windows 7 is a really nice OS. It just feels like a next gen OS....

You mean they finally have made their Apple OSX software copying machine a little better? You mean that the new Windows 7 will run FASTER and better than earlier versions of Windows on the same older hardware? Newer versions of OSX run faster on the same hardware than the older versions. Is that at last, finally also true of Windows? How does Windows 7 run on a 2001-2002 vintage computer compared to OS10.1 versus OS10.5 on a same age Ma